<div>Two of the major shortcomings of EV technology to date have been long charging times and short battery range. </div>

This has been particularly problematic in countries like Australia, where we have vast distances and sparsely distributed populations outside of the capital cities. Half of our roads and properties are also completely inaccessible without a 4WD, even in good weather. Aussies also like to tow things – boats, caravans, trailers, tiny houses, you name it. Our vehicles need to be tough, powerful and designed for long range driving. A single charge range of 1,000km is not an unreasonable consumer expectation in the prevailing circumstances.

We simply don’t currently have sufficient EV fast charging infrastructure in this country to make broad based uptake of EVs viable, not even on the Hume Highway (which is the main highway that services the East coast, where most of the population lives). Plus our mains grid electricity production still relies heavily on fossil fuels… That’s before we even look at the two biggest issues as described above. It is little wonder that EVs to date appear to have mainly been adopted by inner city yuppies and well paid public servants in Canberra, with the rest of the country rolling their eyes at the idea…

Then enters a new player in the market – Janus Electric – which has developed an EV system for heavy vehicles that involves removing and replacing batteries rather than re-charging them whilst the vehicle sits idle. The time it takes to put a fresh battery in a prime mover is 4 minutes – which is only about one fifth of the time it takes to fill a truck’s tank with diesel. Their system is also flexible enough to embrace new battery technologies as they emerge. The other major attraction of the Janus system is that it is designed to be retrofitted to existing vehicles.

I am quietly optimistic that, if this company is successful, it may provide the solution that we have all been looking for. I hope that, in time and after their network of battery swap stations has been rolled out for the freight industry, they may look at designing a similar system for smaller vehicles such as 4WDs, RVs and cars.

I have been watching this new company with great interest & for some time now. Their investment model for raising capital is also a bit interesting. If their company is ultimately successful in the long term, I imagine early investors will be a bit like people who brought McDonalds franchises here in the early to mid 70s – somewhat high risk at the time, but retrospectively viewed as a sure thing.

Watch this space!

https://www.januselectric.com.au/